


Ostrea

by Petronia



Series: Hannibal stories [13]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen, Post-Season/Series 03, that post-credits scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 02:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16338257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petronia/pseuds/Petronia
Summary: Bedelia had never known herself better than when she had been with Hannibal Lecter. He had inserted a blade into her hinge and cracked her open, and the magnetic draw of that could not be understated. Whether she enjoyed the new knowledge was irrelevant. And now she sawhimmore clearly than she cared to.(Written for the Fannibal Fest 2018 Kickstarter.)





	Ostrea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [apoptoses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apoptoses/gifts).



The truth was this: Bedelia didn’t much care for food.

She was perfectly capable of appreciating fine cuisine, of course. And she loved certain light, oceanic morsels – the rose-petal splash of a Côtes du Provence in one’s glass, transparent as seawater foaming over pebbles; the weightless glide of an ice-chilled oyster down one’s throat, as if one had slipped beneath the wave of a distant, salty Northern sea. She harboured no guilt for consuming what she happened to consume. But her gorge rose easily in response to ideas, and ideas preoccupied her. If some atavistic impulse lived in her brain stem, older than cruelty or compassion, it was not that of mammalian hunger.

She had recused herself from Hannibal’s dinner invitations, even before she’d known him well. There had always been an avid undertone in his desire _to feed others,_ that she’d instinctively disliked, and that their therapy sessions could not begin to broach; it brought out a hitherto-unknown determination in her _not to be fed_. There was something of domination and subjugation about the entire affair, a zero-sum game.

In retrospect, if she’d simply followed his script from the start, he might never have pursued her socially – nor so violently confronted her with the more discomfiting aspects of her own personality. But she’d only seen that trap after it had been too late.

Bedelia had never known herself better than when she had been with Hannibal Lecter. He had inserted a blade into her hinge and cracked her open, and the magnetic draw of that could not be understated. Whether she enjoyed the new knowledge was irrelevant. And now she saw _him_ more clearly than she cared to.

It was, absurdly, the same dining table. She was certain of it, though she’d hardly ever been inside his Baltimore townhouse. The dark wood glimmered with lowlights; the ti leaf-wrapped roast Hannibal had just brought out steamed gently on its platter, decorated with and redolent of fresh flowers. Beyond it the world dimmed to a white mist, that curdled time and held both agony and panic at bay.

Bedelia wore a long, shapely evening gown of midnight-blue lace. Her own, though she hadn’t picked it out for this occasion. She did not look down. She _wouldn’t_ look. She wanted one thing very much, which was to survive.

The first course had been Belon oysters – the _Ostrea edulis_ of Roman times – freshly opened and chilled. Not on machine-crushed ice, which she knew Hannibal disdained, but a smooth transparent slab: _avea di vetro e non d’acqua sembiante._ The reference was not lost on Bedelia.

She’d kept the oyster fork in her hand, hidden as well as she was able. Hannibal would know, as soon as he returned to refresh the setting, and that would be her only chance to act.

Then Will Graham stepped through the mist, and took the seat midway down the table.

He wore a neat, dark suit, and his hair was combed. He moved carefully, expressionless, as if nursing wounds whose edges were in danger of splitting. But she had no doubt he could exhibit speed, if the need arose. If, drugged and dismembered as she was, she still had to be outnumbered.

She had given him hope, once. But that had only set his expectation for a later betrayal.

Somewhere, amidst the ice, a white needle of rage ignited.

“You’re fashionably late, Will,” she said. “Only care to stomach the main course?”

His gaze flickered to hers, then away, as if he couldn’t bear to look straight at her. She could not read his intent, but that meant next to nothing where Will Graham was concerned.

“Oysters aren’t really my thing,” he said. “They go down too... alive.”

“Cuisine is part of a continuum of preparation,” Hannibal said, stepping noiselessly to her side. “Preparation is transformation – mechanical, through butchery; chemical, by way of acid or fire; and alchemical, in the overlay of meaning.

“The oysters were served to _your_ preference, Bedelia – barely transformed at all.”

He smiled at her, gently, and held out his hand, until she placed the fork into it. Only then did he begin setting new plates for the three of them.

Bedelia took a substantial sip from her glass. It was Domaine Christian Moreau, a Chablis Grand Cru Valmur that perfectly matched the oysters’ minerality, and would undoubtedly interact with whatever drug Hannibal had pumped into her veins. She could not bring herself to care. In the best case, this ended with her falling comatose onto her dinner plate, and the two of them propping her up until Hannibal’s theatrics had run their course.

“Transformation by way of participation,” she said, “or by way of preparation. You could just as well have left me out of your false dichotomy.”

His eyes gleamed darkly. “If we never meet again, I will remember you like this, Bedelia,” he said. “Glowing, in the candlelight.”

She was certain he would, for what it was worth. She turned to Will instead.

“Actions are overlaid with multiple meanings, depending on the actor and viewer,” she said. “Do you define this as justice? Is that the role you would arrogate to yourself?”

“I wouldn’t want to be gauche,” Will said. He was gazing at the roast. “I define this as... a peace offering.”

“Peace?” She echoed. “Yours? His? Or _mine?_ ”

“Frederick Chilton was treated with contempt,” Will said. “We were all complicit in that. Perhaps he has cause for a _quid pro quo_. But you just couldn’t stay out of it, Bedelia. You run, then you go right back to meddling. I think it’s the uncertainty you find intolerable.

“This—” his mouth twisted—“is the other shoe finally dropping.”

Hannibal had moved onto carving, then plating: thin, even slices, arrayed on bright swirls of yam purée, topped with greens and edible flowers and shards of bamboo. He watched them out of the corner of his eyes, of course, as one took in the tennis while conversing in the Wimbledon stands.

“I might have cultivated that sense of uncertainty in you,” he said. “I find it to be the sprig of zest that gives life meaning.”

“That’s where you and I part ways, Hannibal,” Bedelia snapped. “As I’m sure you’ve realized. And if you understand that, then you know there’s not much time left to... this.”

She left _pantomime_ unvoiced. Rudeness, now, would only sully the stream. But Will lifted his eyes from the feast, and she saw he had taken her point.

“Hannibal,” he said, “we should...” A thread of urgency in the ellipsis.

“The roast was inspired by Hawaiian _kalua_ ,” Hannibal said, “seasoned only with wood smoke from a slow fire, and traditional, red clay-infused _alaea_ salt. We made do without an underground oven, of course, but the intent is not dissimilar to that of _lu’au_. It is a meal that ought not be hurried.”

He laid the plate in front of her. And hovered, earnest, like a sommelier ensuring that a newly-opened bottle met expectations.

“The occasion is one of coming together, Bedelia,” he said, “whatever its temporal limits. Will you partake? Or won’t you?”

Bedelia’s throat closed on the imagining. The idea. Feeding, fed, fed herself.

A peace offering.

She looked up, into Hannibal’s hotly avid eyes, and deliberately took a forkful of meat. Placed it into her mouth.

Chewed.

Then a hail of bullets dispersed the white mist, windows exploding inward amid the sound of Jack Crawford barking orders—“Hold fire, _Goddamnit I said HOLD FIRE!_ ”—and curdled time began to move: fast, very fast indeed.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Avea di vetro e non d’acqua sembiante_ (resembling glass rather than water) is Dante's description of the frozen lake in which traitors are trapped, in the Ninth Circle of Hell.


End file.
